Tips for DM's. Spotting cheating players.

[eris404]

Let's not forget players who always forget to choose their spells until they know what they are encountering.

Ugh, I hate that! As a DM I don't mind the dice-cheating so much (unless other players start gritting their teeth over it), and really most of my players will report bad rolls just to see what will happen. But I do have players that don't really get how spell casting works and cheat out of ignorance. It's a pain because I have to keep track of how many (and what kind of) spells these players have cast. Luckily, we're playing in a new campaign and both of them have chosen to play fighters.

 

[Arnwyn]

Well, I don't really have any tips to spot cheaters as I've done as much as I can proactively to nip it in the bud before it even has a chance to occur. Actually, I do a lot of what The Sigil in his post above does.

- Dice is to be rolled only on your turn, in front of everyone. You may not snatch the dice away. You must announce what the roll is for before rolling.
- All cocked dice are rerolled.
- Dice only count when on the table.
- The DM rolls all search (and related) checks (helps avoid metagaming the results).
- The DM keeps track of all XP.
- The DM keeps the character sheets between sessions.
- If it's not written down, you don't have it (haven't prepared it in the case of spells, etc). The DM can look at your sheet at any time, at a moment's notice.
- The DM records pertinent character info (usually just stats).
- Normal % dice only!
- Retroactively changing feats??? Has never even been remotely suggested by players...

I haven't had any bad experiences yet, as I had these conventions from the very beginning. Works for our group.

 

[Terwox]

Hmm. I let my players roll everything, stats included, to themselves.

No one has complained about anyone else cheating.

Honor system works fine for me.

Hmm. Confucius said something akin to "You make a man into a liar by not believing him." Not exactly fitted to the thread, but, perhaps it is at least something.

And yeah. I just trust my players, is the thing. If I didn't, I'd probably at least have them roll in front of everybody (which most everybody just does anyway.)

 

[dead_radish]

IMC, there's one player that either has the luck of the gehods, or cheats.

We all trust each other, and we make our rolls in front of ourselves, typically. Most of us don't cheat. And we can't tell if this player does or not. I don't want to call him on it, as it's not worth that much. We all joke about it ("No one will hit that guy! Well, except your rogue, of course"), but no one has come right out to call him on it, because no one is certain, and we'd all rather be friendly.

But it is frustrating when no matter what you do, it's foiled by that one player. "Okay, the mages are flying about 400' feet in the air. They seem to be surrounded by magical protection." "I shoot them twice. Total of 25 and 24 to hit. I critted on the 2nd. 7 points of damage from one shot, 18 from the 2nd." "Okay, he dies."

 

[Henry]

I thought I would post some of the ways I've seen players cheat so that DMs new and old might spot this.

HINT: If the player's die stops rolling on the highest number on the die, with an audible "THUD," then chances are it's loaded.

 

[Wikidogre]

50 Pound Sledge

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Let's not forget players who always forget to choose their spells until they know what they are encountering.

I've never had a player cheat that way, but one DM did consistantly. If you want to say "DMs can't cheat", try this one:

DM: Make a will save, DC 15.
Me: Damn, 12.
DM: OK, you're charmed.
Me: Wait, he's attacked my ally and thrown summoned creatures at me, I get a +4 to that save, so I made it.
DM: [tries to argue this point for a while]
Me: [doesn't back down since it was so obvious this guy was my enemy by then]
DM: OK, fine, he didn't cast charm, he cast fear on you, your character is running away.
Me: [stunned amazement esp at the complete lack of response from other players, and reminding myself to get out of that loser group ASAP. (though sadly it took a while after that)]

Kahuna Burger

 

[Cedric]

Forgetters...I'm guilty of this one. I don't consider it cheating (in my case at least, it's not intentional)..I'm just lousy at remembering to keep track of how many rations/torches/coins I've spent or used. I never give myself huge amounts of money or anything like that. I just forget to keep a close of accounting of those items. I'm not the ranger who could never run out of arrows, but I might accidently shoot 5-10 more then I had..unless they are magical, then I'm meticulous.

Also, watch out for the "good" cheaters...by good I mean skillful, some signs...

When things are critical, will roll on a book or clipboard they are holding, while leaning back where no one can see. Then will casually set the book back down so the dice roll off of it .. and announce a result just high enough to succeed by a few points.

Also, when they know the party isn't in trouble. They'll miss a few on purpose, blow a save or fumble once or twice.

On occassion they'll make a production out of rolling for something, right in the middle of the table, pointing the number to everyone.

Also, they almost never roll "too many" 20's. They are smarter then this.

Many of the other tricks listed apply as well to these guys...using two different colored dice for percentiles.

Now, what do you do about cheater's like this? <shrugs> Up to you...they don't bother me. They try not to interrupt the game...and often save a TPK by "making" that critical save everyone else failed. As long as they don't get out of control, I wouldn't mind them so much.

Course...if they ever get caught...they're out of the game for at least a few weeks and until they apologize.

Cedric

 

[Storminator]

I have a bunch of mad teenagers I game with. I make them watch each other. If one catches another cheating, he steals XP from the cheater.

No problems now!

PS

 

[DDK]

On the flip-side...

Lol. Doesn't matter what culture, what nation, what people... there are cheaters everywhere! Lol.

On the flip-side, however, I just want to say that sometimes it's a matter of perception. I rarely play but when I do I have certain... rules. Sometims I forget to speak to a DM about them before play so it looks like I'm cheating but I'm really not. Like, for instance, I only accept rolls done on a book. If it rolls off the book, then I reroll it no matter what. Of course if a bad roll is made, people notice but they never seem to notice when I reroll a GOOD roll! Same thing goes with character equipment. Normally I'm pretty good with this as I have a pedantic nature and end up calculating not only money, but realistic space and weight limits. But sometimes I'll forget something that I consider standard, like caltrops. Almost all my characters buy caltrops. They're just so damned handy and inexpensive. But, for whatever reason, sometimes I forget to put it on the character sheet and so when I say, "But I ALWAYS have caltrops!" I mean it and this is simply a mistake. Then there are spells. Sometimes a person misinterprets how a spell works or there may be several ways to interpret the spells function and the DM's view conflicts. This is not cheating, it's just a different interpretation.

On the whole, I agree that in most instances, people are cheating. However, every so often you get incredibly honourable people (like me!) who really aren't cheating, so always make sure you know the person is cheating before accusing them of doing so. 'Cause I sure as hell know what my reaction would be to such an accusation